“We’ll take our blades wid us,” said the Irish dragoon; “the civil authorities of Paris don’t look out for things very well, so I’ve heard, Master Ethan, and as there are lots of cut-purses in all big cities we’d as well be on the safe side.”
Paris of pre-revolutionary days was vastly different from the present city. Its poor, like those of the country places, were poor indeed, while its rich were magnificently superior in manner and most splendid in dress. Squalor and grandeur were to be seen on every hand; the noisome dens of the Faubourg San Antoine, which less than a score of years afterward were to hurl their hordes of red-capped, blood-hungry maniacs into the vortex of the “Terror,” and the beautiful structures of the rich were not far separated. Ethan and Longsword, as they walked about, wondered how such a state of things could exist among a people apparently so highly schooled in all the refinements of civilization.
Evening drew on and still they were afoot; both began to grow somewhat hungry.
“I think,” said Ethan, “that we had better be getting back to our lodgings.”
“I’ve been thinking that same for some time,” said Longsword. “A rasher of bacon and eggs, as that landlady cooks them, would be mighty comforting, so it would.”
They proceeded along for some time; then their progress became a hesitating sort of thing, and at last they stopped.
“Shamus,” asked Ethan, a laugh in his voice, “where do we live?”
“Faith, then, Master Ethan, I don’t know. Ye see I have no French, and these bla’guard names that they give these streets get the better of me.”
“We could if we knew what street to ask for--but we don’t.”
Longsword pulled a long face, and pondered.
“Sorra the taste of supper will we get to-night,” mourned he.
“Did the street sound anything to you like Rue Constantine?” asked Ethan, after a pause.
“It did,” answered Shamus eagerly. “It is very much like it, faith!”
A shopman was appealed to and he directed them with much earnestness.
“You will not take the next turn, nor the next,” he explained in rapid French. “But the next after that you will take, for that is the Rue Constantine. It runs but the one direction from here, so if you walk along it and look carefully you cannot miss your house, monsieurs.”
